


Wine and Diamond Rings

by el_em_en_oh_pee



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-18
Updated: 2010-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-16 21:33:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/169570
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_em_en_oh_pee/pseuds/el_em_en_oh_pee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somehow, Pansy's managed to rope Draco into going on a double date with a Hufflepuff and a Longbottom. He can't decide which part of that is worse, and nothing can convince him that this is not going to end up a mistake, even if the food <i>is</i> delicious.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wine and Diamond Rings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [coffee_n_cocoa](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=coffee_n_cocoa).



> Happy holidays, [](http://coffee-n-cocoa.livejournal.com/profile)[**coffee_n_cocoa**](http://coffee-n-cocoa.livejournal.com/)! I hope you like this :) ♥ Thanks to my beta for all her help! Title comes from the Rilo Kiley song "ripchord".

"I don't _like_ this," Draco hisses at Pansy out of the corner of his mouth, shivering as she brushes lint off of his back with lazy sweeps of her wand – this spell always tickles.

"Yes but darling, it's for a good cause," she insists, licking her finger and fiddling with his hair.

"I fail to see how going on a double date with a Hufflepuff and a _Longbottom_ is a good cause," he says, flatly, pushing her hand away impatiently and fixing his hair himself.

"The cause is me," Pansy retorts, primly, which, Draco _knows_ that. He sneers at Pansy. She sneers back, says, "Anyway, Bones is pureblooded," as if that ends matters.

It's a good point, though, so Draco nods. "If this is dismal, you owe me," he informs Pansy, straightening his cuffs and standing at attention for her inspection.

+++

Pansy still wonders – at least in public – at the fact that she's dating _Neville Longbottom_ , of all people. Sometimes, she's flooded with the past, struck with her first solid memory of him, of taunting him after their first flying lesson. But then she breathes deep and the earthy smell that follows him around brings her back to the present, sometimes, and sometimes it's the sight of his hands, so strong and sure-fingered, now, always with traces of dirt wedged deep under his nails even though he washes his hands diligently after working with his plants.

It was his hands that got to Pansy first. After the final battle, they were working together on potions for the wounded: he was measuring and chopping the plant-based ingredients; she was brewing. At some point, she caught herself staring at the way he was stripping the pulp from aloe leaves in long, lumpy, fat strips, his fingers nimble and sure. It was the first time she realized that Neville was no longer a long, fat lump, himself. And it was his hands that got her again, when he bent her over a greenhouse trestle table three weeks later, after everyone else had gone home, and ran his fingertips straight down from collarbone to knee, dancing lightly over her pelvis and leaving her skin sensitive and wanting in their wake.

+++

Dinner is at a relatively classy establishment, which Draco had insisted on when Pansy first mentioned her hackneyed plan to him. The ossobuco is fragrant and tender, heady with cinnamon and bay leaf, served over a rich wild mushroom and saffron risotto; the wine delicate enough to cut through the fats in the meal. And Draco drinks a lot of it, watching the way that Pansy and Neville banter – Longbottom, _bantering_! – about some new properties of some plant that started growing spontaneously in the greenhouse and about the antics of some of his students, at which point Bones chimes in with some anecdotes from the Charms class she teaches.

They talk about how they know each other, apart from the obvious shared classes back at school: Longbottom and Bones became close because they're the two youngest professors at Hogwarts; Longbottom and Pansy grew closer working together after the war; Draco and Pansy have known each other since they were six and Draco yanked on Pansy's pigtails because she wouldn't share her toy broom and she kicked him right back.

They talk about the food: the way that Pansy's polenta has been laced with minced garlic, the way Bones's tortelli di zucca is smooth, mustard and nutmeg contrasting while bringing the pumpkin flavours to the forefront of the dish, how Neville likes the gorgonzola on his pizzoccheri, the creaminess of Draco's risotto.

They talk about the chances of England in the upcoming World Cup, about Celestina Warbeck's recent FUI charges, about holiday plans.

But mostly, Draco watches from behind his wine glass as Neville and Pansy lean into each other as they talk about students and Pansy's affection for the work she's doing at Gringotts – "I'm even learning to deal with that pompous Macmillan – sorry, Susan, I know you're friends with him, but he's so _stuffy_ in staff meetings!" – and how they'd like to move in together but Hogwarts has all these _rules_ regarding cohabitation of unmarried professors.

+++

Pansy likes Neville best when he's pushing the piles of parchment and fragments from broken pots and envelopes of seeds and fertilizers from his rough wooden desk in his corner office in Greenhouse Four and laying down a swatch of printed cotton, for sake of hygiene, and then lifting her up to sit on it, knickers around her ankles and robes pushed up around her waist, when he's tucking a wisp of her hair behind her ears and kissing her like she's the only thing in his world, but she also likes him best when he's snuck her into his spartan bedroom in the staff wing after a night at the Three Broomsticks, his bare chest pressed against her bare back, his body curled around hers, arm resting protectively over her stomach, the hair dusting his front accidentally tickling her when he yawns widely. She likes him best when he doesn't notice her morning breath and the way her hair sticks up after a deep sleep, and lets her kiss him fully awake when his morning wood gets to be too much to resist, but she also likes him best when he's been going on for _ages_ about something incredibly dull, like plants, because he's just so _passionate_ about the things he truly cares about. She likes the way he still sometimes gets flustered when Draco is visiting at the same time he is, the way he'll connect the dots of her freckles: sometimes with a finger, sometimes with an ice cube, sometimes with his tongue, the way that his cock is so _thick_ when he's fully hard, the way that his hair curls a little when it reaches the nape of his neck.

Sometimes when Neville comes to Pansy's flat, he falls asleep curled up on her loveseat while she's in the kitchen making a salad to go with the takeaway curry he always picks up on his way over, and instead of waking him up immediately, she'll watch him silently through the kitchen door as she chops radishes and wonder when exactly it was that she fell in love with him.

+++

After dessert – as equally rich as, if not richer than, their dinners – Pansy and Neville make their excuses and head to Pansy's for the night.

Draco and Bones stand awkwardly outside the restaurant, streetlights glowing off the damp tarmac, just sort of staring at each other after their respective friends leave.

"So," Draco finally says, and Bones says, "Well," and Draco runs a hand through his hair before asking, "Are we calling it a night, too?" After all, they have no further obligation to be together.

Bones shrugs. "I thought I might nip by the Leaky Cauldron for a pint; there's some up-and-coming band of kids just out of Hogwarts doing a bit of a show tonight. You're, er. Welcome to come along, if you like."

Draco considers the offer. On the one hand, if he goes with this, he might get laid tonight, and goodness knows he wouldn't be opposed to that; on the other, if he goes with this, he's signing himself on to at _least_ three more hours with a Hufflepuff he hardly knows. Though, if he's to be honest, her company has been surprisingly tolerable this evening – he's not certain, but he thinks she might have even rolled her eyes at him at some point when Pansy was snorting at some in-joke Longbottom had apparently made, which does give her points in his book. "What kind of music?"

"Mostly Weird Sisters covers," Bones says, shrugging. "I think."

That _is_ bound to be amusing. Draco considers a little bit more, then inclines his head: a nod. Bones almost looks surprised for a second, but she recovers quickly and nods, too, gesturing towards a little alley between a jewellery store and a petrol station that looks just recessed enough for Apparating.

+++

Pansy is always totally, completely positive of how Neville feels about her at their moment of meeting each time they rendezvous because of the way he greets her: when he pulls her into his arms, cradles her head in one of his sensitive hands, his fingers tangling in her hair, and kisses her, bending over a little bit so she doesn't have to stand on tiptoe, his tongue sliding against the seam of her lips even if they're still in the middle of a hallway at Hogwarts or the exact centre of Diagon Alley, or, as with one memorable occasion, on a moving staircase in the process of moving. She gets a sense of his feelings too, when she sometimes catches her just staring at her with the most dazed, _how is this my life?_ expression on his face when he thinks she isn't looking.

But when Pansy is alone, when Neville isn't there with his mouth on her breast, biting her nipple lightly, his fingers pressing over her clit in a slippery staccato, she sometimes wonders why he ever would want to be with _her_ , considering what a right bitch she was to them their first five years at Hogwarts, before she grew up, sort of, and Teddy Nott showed her there was more to life than chasing after Draco – sex, for instance – and she became preoccupied with more than just tormenting the people her friends tormented. She knows why she wants to be with him: he lost his awkward angles and, once Snape was out of the picture, showed a startling alacrity for being able to grow notoriously finicky plants that made up some of the rarer potions ingredients, going so far as to correct Professor Sprout about the appropriate way to harvest Devil's Snare seed pods in a way that didn't cause them to lose ninety-five percent of their potency straightaway in Pansy's presence. She had been grinding unicorn horn into a fine powder at the time to replenish the supplies that had slowly disappeared during their seventh year as students stole them to brew Carrow-banned pain-relief potions, and had to leave the room and go straight for the loo because, somehow, little no-longer-lumpy Longbottom with his swift and sure hands growing a pair was one of the most arousing things she'd encountered that year. By the time he made his first move for her, two weeks later, she was more than willing to go with it.

She only mentions this to him three times: once, after they've been dating six months, after a comment Daphne makes about Neville only being with her because she's easy and wants experience; once, three years later, when they're taking a break in order to get away from a gigantic fight about everything and nothing that's been going on for weeks; and once, on her twenty-third birthday, when Macmillan has been given a promotion at work that Pansy was expecting for herself.

The first time, Neville just laughs and tells Pansy that he's not the only one who grew up. The second, his response is much angrier: he snaps "I can't fucking help it, Parkinson, and I don't _plan_ on giving up on you, but if you can't believe that I can love you after _three years_ , if you can't _trust me_ or _respect yourself_ enough to believe that, maybe we need more than a break."

The third time, he simply kisses her, long and hard, a hand slipping down to palm her bum, and when he pulls away, all he says is, "You have nothing to worry about, Pansy. Let's go for dinner with some friends next week, yeah?"

+++

The band playing at the Leaky is dismal. Draco supposes that they do have some technical ability, but mostly the place is loud and smoky with flashing lights that are harsh enough to the eyes to make him suspect a distinctly Muggle origin. The drinks flow quickly, though, and cheaply, too – Bones mentions something about a discount her friend Abbott, who works here in some capacity, gives to friends, and apparently this discount applies to the people her friends are with, too – and after his fourth Manhattan, it strikes Draco that he is unceremoniously drunk. Bones isn't much better, though; she's not so much drinking her gin fizz as she is spilling it as she talks and gestures wide and loose with her hands.

A song with a steady pulsing beat and a lot of moaning from the backup singers comes on as Draco tosses back the dregs of his drink, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world to catch Bones's eye and tug her into the stairwell leading to all the rooms upstairs. Her eyes are bright with liquor although her makeup's smudged, her mouth twisted into an easy smile, her hair falling out of the updo she had it in at the restaurant. She's thoroughly debauched by music and booze, and Draco feels a familiar tightening in his loins as he looks her over.

He pushes her against the wall and kisses her.

She's certainly receptive to the kiss: her arms wrap around his neck and he presses her harder against the wall so that her legs can come up around his waist, too. The kiss is just this side of sloppy, but she's demonstrating a magnificent use of tongue, and he groans when she bites his lower lip, wiggling against him just enough for his swelling cock to stiffen up and beg for more. He's about to suggest that they take this to an empty room upstairs when he feels the familiar tug of a Side-Along Apparation.

"What the-"

"My apartment," Bones explains, going in for another kiss, so. Even though Draco's kind of pissed about the Apparation taking him by surprised – and a drunk one at that; it's a miracle they're not both of them Splinched – he shuts up, because she's pressing her body full against his and, well. That's just a really nice feeling.

He reaches behind her to start unzipping her dress, and she immediately goes for his belt, fingers brushing tantalisingly against his cock as she unbuckles it and gets to untucking his shirt.

It feels to Draco like they're divested of their clothes in the blink of an eye, which... is entirely possible, given the way that Bones is fingering her wand. He stares at her hand for a minute, because, honestly, if the way she's touching _it_ is any inclination, he's going to be a very happy man indeed when she starts touching his cock, instead.

He walks her back against the wall again, reaching down to touch her cunt. It's slick against his fingertips, and he bites his lip as he slips a finger inside of her, careful to brush against her clit as he does so. Her arms are back around his neck and she's scratching his back – not hard, but he can definitely feel nails against skin, pulling stronger sensations to the surface. He groans, and she laughs, then gasps as he presses his thumb more intentionally against her, starts moving it rhythmically.

Her tits are heaving against his chest and Draco is filled with a sudden _need_ to touch them, but that's difficult against a wall. He glances around desperately, and, spotting a table, jerks his head toward it. She nods, and they stumble over, barely able to pull away long enough to walk without tripping.

And then she's hoisting up and, after putting one hand behind her back to make sure she doesn't fall, Draco leans forward and, after cupping a breast in one hand – it's perfectly sized to fit, not big but definitely not too small – he lowers his mouth to it and flicks his tongue hard against her nipple.

Before he knows it, she's pulling his head back by his hair. "Come on, Malfoy, _now_ ," she says, and, well, Draco's not going to refuse that kind of request, so he straightens up and positions himself, cock pressing lightly against her entrance. "Protection spells?" she reminds him.

"Feels better without them," Draco says, matter-of-fact, and Bones is rolling her eyes and muttering an appropriate charm anyway, which, okay, yeah, probably smart. Hands tight on her hips, he pushes forward and into her, crying out at the sensation of being _inside_ someone.

Bones wraps her legs around his waist and pulls him in farther, and then they find a rhythm, bodies rocking together. She's got tight hold on his back still, and she's tightening some muscles around his cock, too, and Merlin _fuck_ but it feels damn good. It feels like almost no time before he can feel his balls tightening, and he drops his head and mouths at her neck, biting gently and then pulling away to bite his own lip, _hard_ , speeding up abruptly as his orgasm starts to overtake him.

"Did you...?" he asks, after he's had a chance to catch his breath, and Bones shakes her head, gesturing for him to go down.

+++

The best day of Pansy's life – so far, at least – happens the night she finally convinces Draco to double date with her and Neville, even though they have to scrounge for someone for him to be with. It's not the conversation, which is nice, or the food, which is excellent, that makes the night great: It's the fact that when they get back to Pansy's place, someone's left a bottle of champagne in her living room. It's chilling in ice enchanted not to melt, two flutes on the coffee table next to it. And resting around the stem of one flute is a ring.

"It was my mother's," Neville whispers, after she makes a questioning noise in the back of her throat, and when she looks at him, he's kneeling. "It's yours, now, if you want it – if you'll marry me."

Pansy is struck dumb, so she sinks down till she's eye-level with Neville, then, nodding wildly but still unable to speak, she grabs him and kisses him, wrapping her arms around him so sudden and tight that he practically falls backwards. Which is fine, too; she eases him down the rest of the way and stretches out over top of him and rolls her hips against his as she continues kissing him, right there on the living room floor.

Pansy's hard-pressed to figure out which the best moment of her life is, whether it's when Neville casts _Reducto_ on the glass so he can work the ring free of the stem and slip it on her finger, where it sits, loose but comfortable, or whether it's when she's got him blindfolded and handcuffed in her bed, settling down for the most drawn-out sex session she's ever experienced, or whether it's when they're eating sloppy ham sandwiches afterwards, just cuddling on the couch and talking out plans.

Maybe it's not just a specific moment, though, Pansy decides. Maybe it's the feelings she has in all of the moments.

+++

Draco sneaks out of Bones's flat early the next morning. The sex was fucking fantastic, but he doesn't feel like it's any situation where he has to stick around.

When he gets back home, though, of _course_ there are three owls from Pansy waiting just outside his bedroom window. And of _course_ it turns out that they're informing him that Longbottom proposed.

There's an engagement party that weekend, and it's one of the most terribly awkward things Draco has been to in _ages_ : there are thirty people there, all Longbottom's and Pansy's respective closest friends, and all of them are doing their best not to get into heated discussions with each other for the sake of the happy couple, but it's a close thing.

Bones is there, too, of course. Draco hasn't seen her since he left her sleeping in her bed. She's chatting with that Thomas bloke, laughing, touching his arm, but at some point, she catches Draco's eye and gives him a lascivious smile, slow and promising, and, well. He'd been thinking of their tryst as a one-night deal, but there's a tightening in his loins and her expression holds a world of promise. And if he ends up Side-Alonging her to his place after one too many glasses of wine, well then.

He wonders at the fact that he'd consider a second night with her, but then again, Hufflepuff or no, he likes the way she moves.

And anyways, he tells himself, after waking up the next morning and finding that she's the one who left in the night, it's not like it will happen again.

Not a fourth time, at least, he thinks, after the night he runs into her in a pub in Leeds, and then he ends up absolutely drawing the line at five the day they find each other doing Christmas shopping in Hogsmeade.

After that, Draco just stops counting. 


End file.
